| [ | Date | | | 2023-03-26 22:46 -0400 | ] |
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The Planiverse1 is a 1984 novel by Canadian author A. K. Dewdney, which I see as a geeky, and possibly cyberpunk, rereading of Flatland2 (1884).
Flatland describes a 2-D world where the inhabitants are simple geometrical figures3. The Planiverse frames its story as the discovery of a 2-D world through a computer screen, and describes a society where animals looks more like those on Earth, and goes deeper into solving problems of making mechanical constructs work, than Flatland did. For example, digestive systems have a zipper-like structure so that they can let food go through without the host splitting into two parts, and stairs have to fold up and down to be of any use, since there is no space to walk besides them.
Upon seeing the illustration below, I was immediately reminded of imagery from a video game:
Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega, 1991), indeed has to live with some of the same constraints as the Planiverse, not for reasons of strict physical constraints, but likely because making hard surfaces non-overlapping is the clearest way to communicate to the player where they can expect to go.
A. K. Dewdney, The Planiverse: Computer Contact with a Two Dimensional World, ISBN 978-0387989167, Copernicus (2000 edition)↩︎
Edwin A. Abott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions↩︎
There is much commentary to be made here; the author was a Anglican priest and theologian in Victorian England, and certainly had to be subtle in his work of satire to avoid overly hostile reactions to his work. In it, the more sides a polygon has, the higher its class in society, with circles, which can be considered polygons with an infinity of sides, at the top, and women nearly one-dimensional.↩︎
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David Haguenauer
<www@kurokatta.org>
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